Bluetooth 5 set to debut June 16 – Here’s why it’s exciting

Bluetooth isn’t usually a very compelling topic to talk about, but it does happen to get relatively interesting when you talk about the major releases of each development. The latest is Bluetooth 5. It’s set to debut on June 16, and there’s a lot to get excited about.

In a recent Bluetooth newsletter (yes, that exists), Mark Powell, the executive director of Bluetooth SIG, discussed the benefits of Bluetooth 5 and why we should be excited about what it will deliver. “It will double the range and quadruple the speed of low energy Bluetooth transmissions,” Powell explained. “Bluetooth 5 will also provide significant new functionality for connectionless services like location-relevant information and navigation.” That last part is referring to Beacon technology, which Google and Apple have helped deploy, that will make it easier to find your way around stadiums, malls and similar massive structures.

Until this newsletter, we hadn’t had much of a confirmation on what the next Bluetooth release was going to be called (it’s Bluetooth 5, to keep things simple). We hope to learn more about when we can expect it in consumer devices later this month.